I'm not sure why I haven't noticed this before, but this may be something that needs to be addressed if it hasn't already. Or did I miss a thread?

Two Arrow Shot is a heroic talent that lets you divide your dice pool in half to attack the same or two separate targets.

Twin Arrows Weapon Trick (a BASIC trick for a bow) lets you attack two opponents for –1d damage each or the same target twice for your weapon's DM x2. The cost is a 3d wager.

Now, I understand game balance is not really the point of WH. That's fine, but these two abilities seem very intuitively exclusive to me. They basically allow you to do the same thing (fire two arrows at one or two opponents), but other than that they do not compliment each other at all. Even more, I'm not even sure what the value of two weapon shot is vs twin arrows? Once the character has a high enough dice pool, the (heroic) talent is actually penalizes you (1/2 your dice pool) to a much greater degree than the (basic) weapon trick (–3d, –4d if you don't have the Ranged skill). So once you're dice pool is 8 or above, you are actually worse off using two arrow shot for anything. Plus(!!!) the two don't work together at all. I suppose you could combine them to launch a volley of 4 arrows into the fray but at half your dice pool –3d? So a character with a 10d (max) dice pool would have a combined 2d dice pool for each shot right? That's assuming the wager applies to both dice pools – if not what? You divide the wager between them? But why would you bother when Two Weapon shot really doesn't give you anything other than the ability to put two arrows into one or two targets, which anyone with a bow can already do for a 3d wager? And I figure anyone who is adding that heroic talents to their character already has a total ranged dice pool in excess of 6 or 7.

So I can only assume I'm missing something. Is there a missing connection, a talent or trick, that is supposed to join these together? Otherwise, I'm just not seeing the benefit to the talent, certainly not at a heroic level. What am I missing here?

Two Arrow Shot is not very good. That tends to happen with a lot of the heroic talents, which cost twice as much as a basic talent, have more onerous purchasing requirements (no more heroic talents than greater talents, which require at least that many basic talents), and whose effects often have drawbacks in addition to their benefits.

For example, Armor Piercing Shot says that it requires a -2d wager to ignore worn armor. The highest armor value listed in the book (for worn armor, not natural armor) is -3d. Since that also comes with a substantial defense penalty, most people will wear armor for -1d. Giving up two of your attack dice for an effective +1 damage wouldn't be worth it for a basic talent, let alone a heroic talent. Same for Incredible Reflexes - when Expertise (Reflexes) adds +1d to all Reflexes rolls, is an extra 50 survivor points worth an additional +1 bonus to a subset of those rolls? Probably not.

The only heroic talents which are worth their cost in survivor points are the gateway talents (allowing access to a heroic fighting style or sorcerous tradition) and possibly the "+1d to all rolls in a skill area" talents if you use at least two of those skills regularly and haven't already bought Expertise for any of them.

Two Arrow Shot is not very good. That tends to happen with a lot of the heroic talents, which cost twice as much as a basic talent, have more onerous purchasing requirements (no more heroic talents than greater talents, which require at least that many basic talents), and whose effects often have drawbacks in addition to their benefits.

I can see the point in 1st ed, since that's about the only way you could get two attacks/round with a single weapon. But since 2nd ed gives you more appealing, I figure it needs an overhaul.

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For example, Armor Piercing Shot says that it requires a -2d wager to ignore worn armor. The highest armor value listed in the book (for worn armor, not natural armor) is -3d. Since that also comes with a substantial defense penalty, most people will wear armor for -1d. Giving up two of your attack dice for an effective +1 damage wouldn't be worth it for a basic talent, let alone a heroic talent. Same for Incredible Reflexes - when Expertise (Reflexes) adds +1d to all Reflexes rolls, is an extra 50 survivor points worth an additional +1 bonus to a subset of those rolls? Probably not.

Hmm...my impression was that APS was meant to be used with Master Marksman to offset that wager. But yeah, that's a lot of trouble for 1d of damage.

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The only heroic talents which are worth their cost in survivor points are the gateway talents (allowing access to a heroic fighting style or sorcerous tradition) and possibly the "+1d to all rolls in a skill area" talents if you use at least two of those skills regularly and haven't already bought Expertise for any of them.

Interesting. Kinda mad at myself for not digging deeper into the talents during the prepublication editing cycle. But since I was only passingly familiar with the rules at that point... Either way, I'm curious if some of this will be addressed in the WHR campaign document, or if it would make a good community project (assuming the community cares, seeing as any updates wouldn't be available for WHR play.

The boundless possibilities of the future can expand the utility of armor (especially for foes), ranged combat fighting styles, etc. Plus, as higher tier play becomes a thing, the size of a dice pool will interact with the Rule of Ten in unusual ways as regards Wagers and split dice pools.

I won't disagree with you on that note, except to say that this is kinda what has created the problem at hand. Let's set aside Herid's assessment of heroic talents and their value for the moment. What you have here is a legacy talent vs a new addition to the rule set that is superior and neither compliments one another. That's not to say either is wrong or broken, but it doesn't make sense in the long term because there's no point in the talent anymore.

A player can spend 175 sp on the talent (for the heroic talent and its greater talent requirement) that splits their dice pool and offers no other benefit, or spend 50 points (for attack focus basic talent) and be able to do the same thing for a fixed -3d penalty and a potential damage bump (doubled DM when targeting a single opponent). In fact, the ONLY benefit I can see to the talent is that the player doesn't suffer the -1d damage penalty when targeting two different targets, which is not much of a payoff.

And at a glance, it doesn't look like Ricochet Shot or Pinning Shot really compliment those tricks either.

Right now, what I'm considering for my own game is to dump all three of those redundant talents and replace them with a single heroic talent that applies to any weapon trick in a weapon the character is specialized in (attack focus). It would allow the player to either negate the wager penalty (but not additional wager costs-that would be too much) or use the trick as a quick action. The talent would apply only to a single weapon each time it is taken.

But, my group hasn't reached "high level" play yet, which is why, as you've pointed out, I'm conscious of the consequences of making too many changes on an ad hoc basis. I'm hoping there are a few folks who frequent these forums that DO have experience with that level of play and can provide some guidance. Though since the majority here seem to be tied in to the OP play experience which has never reached that point, I'm not sure that perspective will be forthcoming any time soon.

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